McDaniel stays hot, helps ‘Cats beat SCHS

Wednesday

Mar 20, 2013 at 5:00 AM

Oak Ridge is tearing the cover off the baseball. Led by senior Matt McDaniel, the Wildcats got their third win of the season — 6-3 in the match-up round against Sevier County late Saturday — and faced District 3-AAA Karns late Tuesday at Hopkins Field.

Robert Holder

Oak Ridge is tearing the cover off the baseball. Led by senior Matt McDaniel, the Wildcats got their third win of the season — 6-3 in the match-up round against Sevier County late Saturday — and faced District 3-AAA Karns late Tuesday at Hopkins Field.

McDaniel went 4-for-4 at the plate and belted his fourth home run of the season in the first inning. McDaniel is batting .687 in the first five games on the year but he isn’t alone.

Ralph O’Neal, Kyler Jones, Prentice Young and Luke Herbert each went 2-for-3 with an RBI against the Smoky Bears.

The quick turnaround from a tough 12-13 loss to Webb earlier in the day was just what the Diamond ‘Cats (3-2) needed. Oak Ridge committed four errors against the Spartans but still came within a run of winning the timed game after McDaniel put his third shot over the left field fence in the sixth.

Against Sevier County, McDaniel put Oak Ridge on the board early with a solo shot in the third to tie the game at 1-1.

With the game tied 2-2 in the fifth, Oak Ridge put together four extra-base hits. With two outs, McDaniel hit a double. O’Neal brought in Reid Elwood, McDaniel’s courtesy runner, on a full count to get the lead.

Jones scored O’Neal on a double of his own two pitches later and Young, now hitting .500 on the season, tripled to bring in another run.

Hebert got a single to make it 6-2 before the Smoky Bears could get out of the inning.

Chris Romanoski picked up the win for Oak Ridge. The right-hander went five innings and pitched his way out of jams in the third and fifth innings. Romanoski walked three in the third, loading the bases but got three outs before Sevier County could drive in a run.

He would walk three more in the fifth but only gave up one run before striking out the final batter of the inning.

Romanoski scattered five hits and gave up two earned runs and struck out one in the outing.

O’Neal came on for the save in the sixth, striking out two batters, walking one and allowing an earned run on two hits.

The Wildcats will travel to Kingsport this weekend for a double-header against Dobyns-Bennett and Sullivan South on Saturday at DBHS. The first game against the Indians is at noon. They won’t return to Hopkins Field for a contest until next weekend when they host the Kevin Calia Tournament March 29-30.